An all-star cast of Metropolitan Opera Musicians plays woodwind quintet arrangements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue in celebration of the life of Bob Fischel. Pedro Diaz, oboe; Maron Khoury, flute; Anton Rist, clarinet; Dan Shelly, bassoon; Hugo Valverde, French horn.
This concert is made possible by a generous gift from the Fischel Family in memory of Bob Fischel, who loved Downtown Music.
At age 20, virtuoso flutist Maron Khoury became the youngest musician to join the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Born in the village of Tarshiha, Galilee, to a musical family, Khoury started playing the flute at the age of 11. Three years later, he was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia to study with renowned flutist Jeffrey Khaner. Prior to his enrollment at Curtis, Khoury studied with Eyal Ein-Habar and Uri Shoham (Israel Philharmonic), Sara Andon (Idyllwild Arts Academy), and David Shostak (Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.)
Khoury is a recipient of several grants from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Charles M. Kanev Memorial Fellowship. In addition, he is a winner of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship and the Schoen Fellowship Grant in honor of Charlotte White. He performed under many notable conductors including James Levine, Riccardo Muti, Simon Rattle, Christoph Eschenbach, and Daniel Barenboim.
Khoury has performed numerous concerts and recitals throughout the U.S. and Europe and has a long list of invitations to lead workshops. He has performed with The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under the direction of the renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim. He has also participated in the New York Mostly Mozart festival, The Lake Tahoe summer festival, and has performed as soloist with iPalpiti Festival, among others.
Before being named Solo English Horn with the Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera in 2005, Pedro Díaz had performed extensively on five continents. He has served extended tenures as oboe and/or English horn with the Filarmonica Jalisco (Mexico), the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia (Spain), the Natal Philharmonic (South Africa) and the Pittsburgh Opera. His appearances as soloist include those at the Spoleto (Italy) Festival, with the New York Symphonic Ensemble (Japan tour), The Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa and with the Puerto Rico Symphony. Two solo appearences at the International Double Reed Society’s conventions, one of them the performance of Michael Daugherty’s “Spaghetti Western.”
Mr Díaz has lectured at Juilliard, Manhatan School of Music, The Hartt Music School, Duquesne University, the IDRS convention in Norman, Oklahoma and in Panama as well as in Italy, Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico. He recently gave master classes in Leipzig and Berlin. A native of Puerto Rico, he received his early musical training there in the “Escuela Libre de Musica”, an esteemed public school for the performing arts. Along with his current duties at the Met, Mr. Díaz is a member of the faculties of The Juilliard School, as well as Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Stony Brook University.
Anton Rist was appointed principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2016. He previously held principal positions with the Princeton and New Haven Symphony Orchestras. In addition, Mr. Rist has performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the American Ballet Theater, and on several Broadway productions. Mr. Rist toured Japan with the New York Symphonic Ensemble, and has performed as a chamber musician throughout Europe and Asia. As a soloist, Mr. Rist has performed with the Mainly Mozart Festival of Orchestras, the Cheyenne Symphony, the Knoxville Symphony, and the Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra.
A dedicated teacher, Mr. Rist has presented masterclasses across the country, and has taught at the Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music Precollege divisions. He has been a faculty member at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, the Hidden Valley Festival of Winds, and the Interlochen Arts Camp. In addition, Mr. Rist has appeared at Festival Mozaic, the St. Barts Music Festival, Bravo!Vail, and is a founding member of the Montserrat Music Festival in the West Indies. Born and raised in New York City, Mr. Rist received two degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jon Manasse. His other major teachers were Larry Guy and Jo-Ann Sternberg. While a student, Mr. Rist attended the Verbier, Pacific, and Aspen Music Festivals.
Audiences may recognize Daniel Shelly from his ten-second role fourteen years ago as “Bassoonist” on NBC’s Law & Order (S. 11, Ep. 3: Dissonance). When his dramatic line (“I’m sorry; I’ll try it again”) failed to garner him an Emmy nomination, Mr. Shelly turned his back on television and joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra instead.
Mr. Shelly has been a member of the MET Orchestra since 2004, and also performs in Carnegie Hall with the MET Chamber Ensemble. In recent seasons, he has performed with Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, and will join San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival in 2015. He can be seen on PBS broadcasts of Gerard Schwarz’s Emmy Award-winning All-Star Orchestra, and heard in numerous major motion picture and commercial soundtracks, including Noah, True Grit, and Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball album.
Before joining the Met, Mr. Shelly held positions with the New Mexico Symphony, Honolulu Symphony, Sarasota Opera, and numerous ensembles in the New York area. His earliest bassoon studies were with Shirley Curtiss, through Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School. From there, he went on to receive his B.M. from the Eastman School of Music, where he was a student of K. David Van Hoesen, and his M.M. from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Judith LeClair.Mr. Shelly is an ardent educator, and has taught at the Verbier Music Festival and Rutgers University. He is currently on the faculty of New York University, and also maintains a private studio. He lives in the Upper West Side with his wife, Metropolitan Opera music librarian Jennifer Johnson.
Hugo Valverde has a professional orchestral and solo career in the United States and his native Costa Rica as a French horn player, currently holding the full-time and tenured position of Second Horn with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2017.
As an orchestral player he has performed with the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra, the Classical Tahoe Festival Orchestra in Incline Village, Nevada, The Strings Music Festival Brass Ensemble in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, The Orchestra of the Americas on their Eastern Canada Tour, The Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, The New York City Ballet and The Philadelphia Orchestra.
In his role as a soloist he performed Richard Strauss’ Concerto No. 1 with the Lynn Philharmonia Orchestra under Guillermo Figueroa and he premiered the piece “Tributo al Ciudadano Pablo” by Marvin Camacho -who is a well renowned Costa Rican composer and pioneer in new contemporary music- with the “Heredia Symphony Orchestra” of Costa Rica under Josué Jiménez. The piece is written and dedicated to him by the composer and it reflects Hugo Valverde’s commitment to Latin American repertoire, having performed and premiered pieces by Manuel Matarrita -Costa Rican pianist and composer-, and other Latin American composers. He often performs chamber music concerts with his colleagues of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at the Carnegie Hall Concert Series at Weill Recital Hall and also with the woodwind quintet “Quinteto de Luz” in Costa Rica at the National Music Institute, Teatro Espressivo and the National Theatre of Costa Rica.
A dedicated educator, Mr. Valverde has been involved in pedagogical programs in the United States and Latin America, giving masterclasses for the Orchestra of the Americas, Yale University School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Bard College Conservatory of Music, National Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, The Blackburn Music Academy in Napa Valley, San Jose State University, Austin Peay University, New World School of the Arts, University of Panama School of Music and the University of Costa Rica, among others. During the pandemic he created the project “Lockdown Warmups”, which offered 40+ free masterclasses and professional online coaching from renown musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Seattle Symphony Orchestras, The Cleveland and The Philadelphia Orchestras, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Bavarian Radio, Frankfurt Radio, Hamburg, West Germany Radio Symphonies, and other remarkable ones, for young Latin American horn players. He currently teaches at the Precollege Division at Manhattan School of Music.